The fish you have to see to believe... (Fly Fishing for Trout)

FLY FISHING AND CATCHING MY MOST IMPRESSIVE / MOST BEAUTIFUL / ONE OF THE BIGGEST BROOK TROUT OF MY LIFE!

If I could use one word to describe the day I caught one of my biggest brook trout ever I’d describe it as… well… miserable. You see, hurricane Helene was full swing in the region, and unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve seen the destruction it caused in the Appalachians. Luckily for me I was just far enough north to not get hit with the really bad stuff, but the water was quickly rising, the wind was causing the leaves to fall into the water at a rapid rate, and the rain was making any time spent outdoors pretty miserable. But nonetheless my buddy Allen and I had this trip planned out for the better part of a month, and we’re the type of people to not let a little bit of bad weather foil our plans. We wanted to hike into an area that we had fished sparingly for years, Allen a few years more than myself, to try and catch one big colored up brook trout. So we packed up and headed into the wilderness despite the weather, which ended up being one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Struggling was an understatement. We had fished for several hours without much to show for it other than one or two small brook trout a piece, none of which were worth the wet clothes and several miles of hiking it took to fish this water. In fact we had decided to bail on the entire plan, thinking if we left in time we could maybe fish some other water that was more conducive to this type of weather. But in a moment of desperation I tied on a woolly bugger, arguably the most legendary fly of all time, as we fished what we had decided would be last stretch of water

We still had our fair share of mishaps but as luck would have it, once we started to dialed in how to catch the fish in the adverse weather, the fishing took a 180 degree turn. Granted we had been fishing for many hours at this point, but swinging and / or jigging streamers seemed to be the ticket to getting the large fish to move. And just about every 45 minutes to an hour, not counting any time we couldn’t fish due to the ongoing leaf hatch, we would see a fish that most Appalachian angler’s dreams are made of.

Allen and I were watching one of our best days of fly fishing unfold right in front of our eyes. We weren’t finding numbers, but the fish we were catching were not only big, but had the colors to match. The bright fluorescent pink spots with the navy blue halos against the dark army green of the brook trout create a beauty that could rival that of any other fish on earth. And then it happened. As I was walking up a large hole with a rock ledge I casted up stream and worked my wooly bugger back down past the ledge… and a massive fish rolled. I didn’t know how big it was, but I knew it was bigger than anything else I had seen that day. I yelled ahead at Allen and told him the size of the fish I had just seen was nothing short of insane. I made a few more casts and moved the fish yet again, this time getting an even better look. But more importantly this time I saw where the fish came from and exactly what part of the ledge he went back into. So I made a cast up stream, and let the woolly bugger drift naturally down the current then just as I hit the ledge I gave it one pop… then another… and then on the third pop I thought “either I’ve hooked the ledge, or this huge fish just at my streamer” and I set the hook. After a short fight the fish was in the net, and neither myself or Allen could believe it. Allen even sat there speechless for a solid minute just staring down into the water.

We couldn’t believe the size and color combinations of that fish, and still can’t. It’s just one of those fish that you can just sit and stare out for hours, as I have since catching the fish a month ago. That fish is only my 3rd native brook trout in that size range, and certainly the one with the most unique color patterns. But that fish was just the icing on the cake to an incredible day. I learned that even if the conditions aren’t ideal you can still make your day something insane, a lesson that I feel like I have to learn over and over again because it’s so easy to look at a miserable day and decide to stay home. This particular day of fishing also proved that you need to adapt and fish different flies, because if you can figure out what the fish want you can turn a day of horrors into a day that dreams are made of. What a time to be alive.

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